Disabling Click-To-Move would be a good idea from a bot standpoint, because even though it won't eliminate the bots, it would seriously cripple them. The bot programs base all of their automated movement on Click-To-Move. Emulating key-presses as someone said above is highly inefficient and inaccurate to automate for an A.I. (example: trying to figure out how long to press "Move Forward" in a dungeon hall, then figuring out how long to press "Turn Left" to take a left turn)

However, I think we underestimate the number of players who use this feature legitimately. I would certainly support since I don't personally use it, but Blizzard as a company has to take into consideration all types of players as well.

many current bots don't use click to move but the (normally) protected wow api calls (e.g. move forward / backward / turn, etc)
if click-to-move would be disabled, the other ones could rather easily switch to this method, too.

a very simple way to ban lots of bots is to have gm's work at night and require people to answer a gm if contacted.

so... if someone received a ticket and a gm tries to contact that guy he is REQUIRED to answer a question. if he doesn't answer at all (or just random stuff) BUT is still fighting, walking around etc they should be allowed to ban him for botting without further questions. maybe give 1 warning if he hasn't been caught before.

many current bots don't use click to move but the (normally) protected wow api calls (e.g. move forward / backward / turn, etc)
if click-to-move would be disabled, the other ones could rather easily switch to this method, too.

a very simple way to ban lots of bots is to have gm's work at night and require people to answer a gm if contacted.

so... if someone received a ticket and a gm tries to contact that guy he is REQUIRED to answer a question. if he doesn't answer at all (or just random stuff) BUT is still fighting, walking around etc they should be allowed to ban him for botting without further questions. maybe give 1 warning if he hasn't been caught before.

problem is: blizzard doesn't ban bots cause they would lose money.

Then every idiot out there in an attempt to disrupt the opposing team by drawing their attention away from the match at hand sends in a ticket knowing the person will have to stop what they are doing to speak with a GM. Once this happens Blizzard has to hire in more GMs answering false tickets and rectifying issues of players who were banned because they didn't respond because they didn't notice their chat or were too caught up playing the game to notice. Of course people then flock to the forums to bitch about the newest plague on WoW and how they wish this had never been done to rectify the bot issue in the first place. It's amazing how everyone who believes they have a simple solution fail to see past the start of their plan.

Disabling Click-To-Move would be a good idea from a bot standpoint, because even though it won't eliminate the bots, it would seriously cripple them. The bot programs base all of their automated movement on Click-To-Move. Emulating key-presses as someone said above is highly inefficient and inaccurate to automate for an A.I. (example: trying to figure out how long to press "Move Forward" in a dungeon hall, then figuring out how long to press "Turn Left" to take a left turn)

Given that world and dungeon maps are fixed and WoW has no collision detection with anything other than landscape, that's fairly trivial.

You can do that in WoW? I was thinking click to move was when you hold down both mouse buttons and keep holding them to move which I tend to use all the time... but clicking from place to place diablo style seems... extremely inefficient!

a very simple way to ban lots of bots is to have gm's work at night and require people to answer a gm if contacted.

so... if someone received a ticket and a gm tries to contact that guy he is REQUIRED to answer a question. if he doesn't answer at all (or just random stuff) BUT is still fighting, walking around etc they should be allowed to ban him for botting without further questions. maybe give 1 warning if he hasn't been caught before.

Most bots use stolen accounts or stolen credit cards. Blizzard makes nothing off those. And the people they piss off leave the game.

But please, don't let me stop you from repeating this stupid crap until the end of time. OMG GREEDY CAPITALI$T SWINES!!!!!

---------- Post added 2013-01-07 at 02:05 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Nasriel

You can do that in WoW? I was thinking click to move was when you hold down both mouse buttons and keep holding them to move which I tend to use all the time... but clicking from place to place diablo style seems... extremely inefficient!

i use it when im having to move/walk/run and type at the same time and back near end of BC i was in a really bad car wreck that made me lose the use of my left arm for almost a whole year and that feature was bout only thing that let me keep playing

Pretty much this here. It's Blackstone's formulation that you're probably looking for, "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer". Click to move, I'm sure, is an accessibility feature, and the only way you can really play with one hand unless the player has an elaborate keybind/macro setup or a special controller (like the G13 or Nostromo). The OPs idea, while with good intention, ends up taking down good people with it.

This is exactly why it is in. Accessibility. People with two hands rarely think of the possibility those with one could/would play the game. Back when my wife and I ran a guild, we ended up recruiting a pretty damn good player who was kicked from a guild for not joining vent ... the kid was deaf. He instead, studied the fights, videos, etc, was willing to listen *cough* read explanations in chat and follow better than people in vent.

Bots are in every game to some extent. It seems bad in WoW because of how they handle it ... wait in the weeds, collect data and accounts, then mass ban when they have a fix for the exploit. Leaves bots running around for a long time, and they come back quick after that as well.

I'm sure there are ways to combat it better, but I've seen bots that were better programmed than players play >_> so not all bots are bad As far as resources, they stress over limited access too much ... mats still have value even if 'limitless' such as in star wars where companions can get them on missions you send them out for, as well as you collecting in the world at the same time. Personal world nodes would be the only way to stop the bot ninjaing of nodes, not botting itself.

If there is a way for profit, they will find a way around nearly any barrier you put up.

NOTHING about this game is simple. If it was, then all these genius solutions people come up with for various problems in the game would already have been implemented.

"Let's see. There are monkeys that evolved into men and monkeys that didn't. Just as well, there are men that remained men and men that evolved into something else. Do you really think humans are the ultimate form of evolution? How arrogant."
--Kakurine, Evil Zone for PS1

If by "squirm like the maggots they are" you mean "take five minutes out of their day to rewrite their bot as they already do frequently". Those guys probably enjoy it.

The point would be that they round up and ban the people using their bots. Hope they have fun.

“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow

What if you just make an authenticator a prerequisite for click-to-move? Obviously not all bots are on unprotected accounts, but my guess is that a significant percentage of them are. Anyone who chooses not to have an authenticator on their account is using this functionality for being stupid (why not accept a free tool to protect you from hackers?). Refusing to use an authenticator is the rough equivalent of refusing to lock the door to your house because it's too inconvenient to open, or you're afraid that you might lose your keys...

This functionality is already in place for promoting ranks within guilds, so it wouldn't be that difficult to cross-pollinate.

Also, only about 1/2 of bots use it, alot you have to disable it for them to work.

So in short, your removing a control feature that millions use, to temporarily inconvenience a very small percentage of bots.

i doubt millions use the click to move feature.

i want to add, before this thread i had no idea anyone used it, i did not know it was used by people with dissabilities and such. i dont really know enough about how the bots work to say if this is a good idea or not, but even if this did break every bot, it wouldn't take long for them to do a work around.

Originally Posted by Mormolyce

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It definitely won't fix all the bots, as some do turn you rather than CTM, but yeah, this would remove a few of them.

Does anyone actually use CTM? I tried it once for 5 minutes just to be mildly amused to the throwback of WC3.

Uses the same signature for over a year, just randomly gets infracted for it recently.
Placeholder signature is placeholder and will hopefully make me finish my shit.
Oh yeah, I'm a Druid and stuff.
I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall.

even if this did break every bot, it wouldn't take long for them to do a work around.

It might not fix bots forever, but they should be stamped out when the situation arises. Simply because viruses and bacteria adapt to further attack living organisms doesn't mean we shouldn't crush them when we can.

“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow

My girlfriend (who raids with me) uses click to move. I doubt she's the only legit player to do so. You can't punish a minority of fair players to punish a majority of unfair players in a way that would not guarantee the bots would stop to function.

Blizz can do anything they want. It's their game and you have zero rights.